Nami was gone by the time I went rushing out of Zetta's classroom.

I had given a lame excuse of needing to go to the covery and gave up on the duel not a breath after Tana had knocked me outside of the circle.

It wouldn't have mattered if I stayed, she would have won anyways.

Alexei was still there, he was always there, and as soon as I passed the covery door, he began to follow me. All I wanted to do was put my head down and run blindly to my quarters, but I knew I could not be seen that way.

No one could know why I was truly upset, and I did not have the will to lie to the other moons or my teacher.

She thought I was a strong lass. Allowing myself to be beaten in front of her was weak enough. If she found out that the moon she had seen so much potential in was not even real, I couldn't take the thought.

Only able to barely keep myself from breaking into a run, I bumped into a group of upper moons that were coming out of the hall of conquest. All of their perfect blue cloaks held a half moon in their centers except for one that was icy pale and clasped around the neck of a pink haired precept.

"Underwitch Ire?" Precept Seram called out as I passed.

Hearing the name that was not mine nearly broke me.

Ire wasn't real.

Precept Seram did not know me, she had only been fooled into thinking she did. The daughter of a sorcerer she had taught, cared for, and protected was a lie she had been told by The Mothers to hide what I truly was.

Ruiner. The Autumn I had grown to hate spoke into my mind.

The singing stairs song drowned her out for the brief amount of time I was descending their crystalline steps, but as soon as my boot touched grey stone, she returned.

Ruiner.

Mallory didn't love me, how could she even like me? She had no idea who I actually was. Plia's instinct to fear me at first had been correct. The little underwitch must have sensed that something about me was not right. How would Vanda feel knowing that the person she had dueled that day was actually a thief and a liar? Would she have been so good natured to me? Would she have been so willing to help me grow stronger?

I should have stayed in Erosette.

I should have been grateful that I was given a whole manor to roam around instead of being locked away in a chest somewhere.

I shouldn't have wanted anything. Someone like me didn't did not have such privileges.

Even with as bad of a taste as she left in my mouth, I knew Tana well enough to know that the duel would not be the only time she would threaten me the way she had.

It would simply be the first.

Every time we fought, whenever she wanted something that was mine, even just to hurt me further, I knew that should hang her knowledge of my seal around my neck and tighten it whenever she pleased.

If I had just been honest, and told Anna that I was being bullied from the start, it would have never gotten as bad as it had.

The Autumn I hated named me a third time. Ruiner.

I had to tell her.

She would know what to do.

I would apologize for not telling her about Tana sooner, and she would help me calm down. She would probably open a bottle of wine, sit down by the fireplace, and say something that was so perfect, all my worries would wash away.

With that hope brimming on my lips, I slammed the door of our quarters behind me and called out for my beloved. "Anna!"

There was no answer.

The lights were dark, and there was nothing in the fireplace but the coals from the night before. The bathroom, the closet, under the bed, I searched everywhere for her but found no sign of the person I needed most.

"Sam!" I screamed into the dark.

He could help me find her, I could send him back out in the halls of Lun and he would bring her back from wherever she was.

Again, there was nothing in the answer.

I was alone.

For a brief moment, I almost called out for Nami. She had said that we would speak soon before she had left Precept Jasna's room, and she did not seem to hold the same opinions about me that Azza did. She would understand, she could help me.

I slumped back on the made bed and covered my face with my hands.

Even if she did help me, she was probably bound to tell all The Mothers the same way that my mother was. Regardless if she wanted to or not, she would have to tell them that someone knew about the seal.

My mask of Ire fell away from me as I slid down onto the floor.

"I don't know what to do," I cried to myself and hated the sound of it. "There is nothing I can do."

The Autumn I hated stayed silent.

The Autumn I liked spoke instead.

That is not true.

"Of course it is! She knows, I can't make her unlearn it." I shouted back at myself.

You can know her as well.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I gasped and snapped back up to my feet. "The Well!"

Tana was a sorceress, she had memories. I knew that it was not only those that had died whose memories were collected in my mind.

The honey haired underwitch knew a secret about me.

I could know everything about her.

What she feared, who she loved, what she hated about herself, there was no end to what I could learn.

If her memories were in my mind, I could threaten her back. My seal would mean nothing to people that just found out Spring Tana's deepest darkest secret.

The relief of no longer feeling helpless brought me to the bathroom and led me to drawing a bath before I ever considered if what I was about to do was wrong.

I had learned the weight of The Well very well near the bridge to Erosette. After wearing her face to a points tournament, I had come face to face with The Lady in Red, and everything I had ever learned about her had come rushing back to me. I had felt her pain, I knew just how badly she wanted to become a mother.

Did I really want to feel those things with Tana?

Did she really deserve for me to know what the inside of her mind looked like?

I could not find an answer in words.

No, yes, maybe, there were reasons that I should accept each of them.

Despite my not knowing, I did not stop and try to come to some conclusion. Instead, I began to undress slowly. My cloak came off first, and then my jacket. I took a moment to hold my vial necklace before I took it off as well. I felt detached somehow, like I was in a dream, and all I could do as I slipped into the steaming water was hold my breath.

It was a strange feeling, doing something that I knew was wrong and not caring that it was.

It was how I had felt when I had first escaped the only room I had ever known. Every time I had crossed over the manor walls had felt much the same.

There were far more reasons for me to stop than there were for me to continue, but as I lay back in the bath that I had drawn for myself, I realized that I only really needed one.

I wanted to do it.

The seal being around my navel had been my fault, but using it to threaten me had been her choice alone.

It did not matter to me if she deserved it, she had made her choice and I would make mine.

I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing. It took what felt like forever for me to relax, but when I finally did, falling into The Well felt just like I was falling asleep. . .

I had not been in The Well for quite some time, but I found it exactly like I had left it.

Through a near infinite amount of floors, as far below me as I could see and as far above me as I could imagine, there was nothing but books in every color I knew existed.

The place inside my mind had changed much since my first terrifying trips into it, but I had changed too.

I left the black room at the center of The Well and strode into it like I had built it with my own hands. Without hesitation, I went to the center of the perfect copy of Patience's library and called out to the thing that I knew was there. "Tana!"

I could not remember the last time I viewed a memory that was not Katarina's, and for a long moment, I doubted that the book I sought would come to me.

My doubts proved to be true.

"Right, with my power in hand." I nodded to myself as I remembered what the thing at the bottom of The Well had told me.

I focused my aura and brought it to my palm before raising my hand again.

"Tana!" I shouted for the second time.

My doubts were burned away by the watery blue light that began to coalesce in my hand. All too quickly, fear took their place as several other balls of light formed above me.

I had lost myself before, truly lost myself, when dozens of memory books had fallen onto me after I had knocked against a shelf.

As all the different colors and shades turned to pages and spines, I knew that it was about to happen again.

I jumped back just in time to watch them all fall down and flutter onto the place I had just been standing.

"Why would you do that," I called out in anger. "Are you trying to make me lose my mind?"

There was no answer, but I did not care about the silence as much as I usually would.

Beneath a purple tome, two greens that were nearly the same shade, and a wash of different blues, I found a color I recognized.

I had been defeated by a puddle of that same watery blue not very long before.

I ran my hands back through my hair and gave myself permission to smile.

When I had called out for Hexis not long after I had learned her name and nothing had come, I had thought that my calling would only work for Katarina.

I usually would have cheered, yelled a thank you to the thing, and celebrated like I had just been set free, but the smile would have to be enough.

I had work to do.

The problem would be grabbing Tana's book without touching in of the open pages that had fallen atop it.

Without any proof that what i meant to do would work, I brought my aura back to my palm and held it out towards the mess of memories.

"Tana." I commanded and hoped that the books I had not called for would disappear.

They did not.

"Are they all Tana?" I asked aloud as I knelt down and touched the purple book on top with my fingers.

If the honey haired underwitch was secretly a twinsoul like me, I thought I would bury into pieces like one of Zetta's Gemman.

The moment my skin touched the plum color of the book, a name appeared in my mind.

Metis Tana.

I snatched my hand back in surprise, it had been far too long since that had happened for it to not scare the color out of my face.

From the purple, I went to the two greens.

Thorn Tana. Vine Tana.

Their names were not spoken, but they came in a wash of visions and senses that felt almost like the painful pleasure before a sneeze. More echoed silently within me as I moved to the blues. Danu Tana. True Tana. Spring Tana.

I stood back up and took a step away from the books.

"I have to be more specific," I said to myself, still smiling from the high that learning how The Well worked had brought me. Aura still built within me, I called out the right name for the first time. "Spring Tana!"

All at once, the other Tana's that had come at my beckoned call disappeared. The book of memories that I had come for flew up from the ground and smacked into my outstretched hand.

Spring Tana.

The sound of her name soured my smile, and I had to resist the urge to try and destroy her book.

It was thin, much thinner than Katarina's, and that same scent of rain I had smelled when Tana had hugged me filled my nose.

Sam had been gone since the over I had spent in Jasna's quarters, and I had stayed out of The Well in an attempt to respect his freedom.

If what I was about to do interrupted him, then I would have to find the strength to withstand his contemptuous anger.

I let the book fall open somewhere past the first section of white pages. Being a newborn was something I had only done once before, and I did not wish to become lost in that again.

With a final glance over both my shoulders, I sat down and pressed my hand against a page.

Spring Tana would come to regret what she had said to me, and I would find the means to that end in her own memories.

Sometimes, the weight of The Well wasn't heavy at all.

Sometimes, it felt like no weight at all.

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